"Thank you for actually penning these books. They are a wonderful
review of the concepts without the excessive (but necessary) amount
of math behind them. I wish they had been recommended as
supplements in both my undergrad and graduate years."

— Josh Tobias, 2017

"I have used Digital Atmosphere for quite sometime and consider it to be one of the most straightforward, comprehensive, and operationally useful programs on my server. I have found it to be invaluable for my day-to-day analyses and forecasting as well as my ongoing research.
Tim is also extremely helpful and absolutely indispensable when it comes to locating scripts, the best datasets, and even professional contacts to help make any organization as productive as possible."

"Thanks Tim for your quick response (we like that at FedEx) about our Professional Versions! As we're a 24/7 operation, we're look forward to augmenting our present weather system with Digital Atmosphere."

— Mel Bradley, FedEx Operations

"Wow. Your books are incredibly technical and useful. I consider myself a very amateur weather watcher and feel that I am already ahead of the curve. Thank you."

— Terry W. Taylor

"The NEXRAD support is truly awesome and easy to use - and the other feature just really tops it off. This is about my sixth email tonight - the other five being to other spotters in the area telling them they just have to download Digital Atmosphere and give it a serious going over."

— David Cashion

"I'm really looking forward to the next phase of Digital Atmosphere Workstation. I'm sure it will be as excellent as all your other products."

"I run and manage a number of festival type events and Digital Atmosphere is able to produce charts that I can use for normal weather forecasting with a fair degree of accuracy and in particular wind speed and direction that is crucial to many of events."

— Robert Connolly, GI7IVX

"The archive data arrived today. WOW! What an amazing set of data! Thanks again for all the extras that you included as well!"

— Bryan Bollman, IA

"We do run GEMPAK and all the Unidata software also, but your package has numerous advantages, the biggest being Windows."

— Anonymous

"I am very impressed with what you have done. I have already shown several people at work your site. I plan on talking to our MIC [Meteorologist In Charge] soon to see if we can get Digital Atmosphere in the office to complement/supplement AWIPS."

— Ken Simosko, NWS, Pocatello

"This new version is even better than the older version which was awesome! Your programming skills and met knowledge amaze me!"

— Chris Kincaid

Digital Atmosphere support

Last update: March 2019

Having a problem or do you want to know how to get the most out of your software?

First check through our FAQs below. There's lots of good information!
Visit our discussion forum and
search through the content to see if the issue has been discussed already. This may solve your problem right away.
Contact us directly if you
can't get help or need direct support. Please allow a few days for us to reply.

Can I test your software?
Yes! The Digital Atmosphere evaluation version gives you a full-fledged 30-day test drive to let you
decide whether the program is suitable for your use. Please take full advantage of it! Download and play
around with the program before you decide to spend any money. This method has made all of our users
happy by being sure that they're buying what they want. This is more lenient than many
big-business software publishers, who don't give you any sort of test drive.

Is it safe to order from your website?
We have been processing credit card orders for 14 years, and we use a secure socket layer for your
credit card data. This is handled by a trusted payment processor.
We also frequently audit our own computers to make sure we are not storing credit card numbers.
You are safe with us, and Visa and Mastercard hold banks responsible for protecting cardholders against unauthorized use.

What is your customer privacy policy?
The big corporations may profit from selling information about you, but we consider it to be
an invasive breach of privacy. We respect our relationship with you as a customer, and any orders
that you place with us are held in strictest confidence. Your name and address are used only for
our own reference, and may be used for us to mail you information about our own products
(only occasionally, not one spam every week) or on behalf of a partner's weather products and services.
If you're not interested in receiving any mailings from us, please
contact us.

Do you do customization of Digital Atmosphere?
Yes, we offer contract work on Digital Atmosphere. Any individual or company may purchase programming time
at $75 per hour (4 hour minimum) to see that specific bugs are fixed or new features are added.
Turnaround time is about a week.
Contact us to get started.

Do you offer VIP support?
Yes. Although free support is provided by e-mail, we offer VIP service by telephone to include
help with Digital Atmosphere or consulting work.
The rate is $65 per half hour.
To order, click contact us to set this up.
All VIP payments are for time, not for a solution; therefore refunds cannot be issued once support is used.

Installing

Will it run on my computer? I don't have the absolute newest machine.
This used to be an issue with slower Pentiums, but nowadays all common computers are easily capable of running
Digital Atmosphere. There's no need to have all the latest upgrades and drivers.

Do I have to uninstall Digital Atmosphere to upgrade it?
It's not required, but it's a good idea just to make 100% sure there won't be any conflicts of any kind.
To uninstall Digital Atmosphere, go to the Control Panel, then choose "Add/Remove Hardware", then
choose "Digital Atmosphere". Do not uninstall if you are concerned about losing your special settings and configurations.

I am trying to install Digital Atmosphere under Windows 7 64-bit (or newer). After double-clicking the installation program
I get a "not compatible with this version of Windows" error.
Copies of Digital Atmosphere released before 2004 will produce this error because those versions used a 16-bit based installer program.
Microsoft dropped support for 16-bit executables starting with the Windows 7 series.
To solve this, you will need to either downgrade your operating system or get a newer version of the software.
If you do not wish to upgrade to the latest version of the software but just continue your right to use an older version, please download the
Digital Atmosphere 2005 / 2.07 release.
If you would like the newest version, you can try it
here or buy it
here.

I am having problems running Digital Atmosphere in a multiple-user environment.Windows User Access Control (UAC) was introduced in Windows Vista
and has resulted in us having to update the software in 2009 to keep data and settings out of disallowed directories.
Older versions of Digital Atmosphere will have permissions problems because of this.
However, some users with multiple accounts on one computer (offices, classrooms, etc) have reported some residual problems
related to UAC permissions when using the newest Digital Atmosphere versions when running from other accounts.
We are working to solve those issues and expect to release a fully compatible version in 2012.

Registering & Upgrading

I need to upgrade my software.
If you wish to upgrade your software to a newer or more powerful version, you can get started at our
Digital Atmosphere upgrade page.

I need a key number.
We will need your serial number, found in Digital Atmosphere's Help > Register menu (if this is grayed out,
it means you're already registered). This varies on each computer and is necessary for us to determine the
key number. Also be sure to send your name and mailing address so that we can verify you are on our books
as a registered user. E-mail this to us at our address here.
We will then send you the key number.

Key number doesn't work?
So far, 100% of all instances of this problem are a result of mistyping or improper key use by the end user.
We have processed thousands of serial-key requests without any "bugs" on our end. For example, we copy &
paste all numbers between E-mail and our key generator, eliminating all procedural error, and our key
generator is exactly the same as that embedded in Digital Atmosphere, eliminating mathematical error.
The culprits are invariably:
* The user mistyped/misread the serial number when sending it to us.
* The user mistyped/misread the key number into Digital Atmosphere.
* The user inadvertantly or intentionally mix-matched keys and serials between two or more computers.
A specific serial-key combination is useable on ONE MACHINE only and can't be transferred to another machine
(which in turn requires its own serial-key combination).
* The user reinstalled Windows, wiping out all stored registration information on the machine.
To solve this problem, send your serial number again to us here
and we'll verify the information.

Installing on a second computer
Users who have purchased Digital Atmosphere strictly for personal use may install Digital Atmosphere on a
second computer. Just install it on the new computer then check it under Help > Register and
contact us with the serial number. We'll then look up the key number.

What happens if you go out of business?
We grant the user of a Weather Graphics product the right to use it in perpetuity.
We will honor this agreement. In the unlikely event of Weather Graphics shutting down,
we will enable automatic approval of all activation requests or post an
unprotected version online, as a way of allowing users to continue
using our products.

Can I get keys for older versions of software?
Absolutely! We will never require you to upgrade to a newer version; at worst, you'll just have to use an old version
similar to the one you originally registered.
Though our ability to provide technical support for older versions may
be impossible or impractical, we will provide keys to allow your program
to work fully.

Safeguarding a registration
The registration is lost with any hard drive crash, and can't be transplanted onto another computer since
it is unique to each Windows installation.
That said, we do sell the Digital Atmosphere Professional version, which contains no
serial/key validation process. This is designed for agencies and individuals who have mission-critical operations
and don't want any vulnerability to not having a key. It's priced at $199, partly to keep the number of
unprotected copies floating around at low levels. It is shipped on a CD and is not available for download.

Upgrade notifications
To get added to an upgrade announcements list, sign up at
weathergraphics on Google Groups.
Google Group. Unfortunately I'm pretty slow at getting around to writing up newsletters,
so there will be little danger of your email box getting clogged up.

Getting the most out of Digital Atmosphere
Regular users should visit our online forum, which was created
mainly for Digital Atmosphere. Here you can find out about current news, hear from other users, and ask questions.

Data

For SYNOP data, what is the difference between COD, COD(1hr) & COD (3hrs) which now appears (effective 2019) in the
data input choice window in place of the old simple COD only?
This is to give the user more flexibility over which observation hour they want to download and display. The WMO
mandates that all worldwide stations must observe every 6 hours (at the standard times of 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z) but some
countries take observations every 3 hours (intermediate SYNOP) or even hourly. While it may seem desirable to display this
higher resolution data, you may see entire regions of missing data where countries are using a standard 6-hour schedule.
Therefore we recommend you use the basic SYNOP data offered, and only use data labeled "3-hour" or "1-hour" when there
is a special need. One exception: if you depend primarily on METAR data and wish to combine any available
SYNOP data with the METAR plots, we recommend using 1-hour SYNOP data, which will lock in all of the data to a single
observation hour. (Added 3/20/2019)

Is the Internet required to use Digital Atmosphere?
No, not at all. Digital Atmosphere was designed in an era when continuous Internet was not always available. It works
great with canned data (i.e. data stored on your hard drive), which makes it outstanding for case studies.
Digital Atmosphere will even work with legacy terminal-driven systems (not actually interfacing with legacy servers, but
using the data they deliver).

How can I correct bad data?
You can correct bad data temporarily by dragging the mouse across the station. Then go to File > Quality Control
and change and find the station you want to change, then edit the erroneous value (to eliminate it set it to -9999).
You can correct the data permanently in DA2000 V1.0a and later by editing the DIGATMOS.RUL file with a text editor.
In the first column, put the WMO or ICAO of the station. In the second column put the data type
(TEMP, DWPT, WDIR, WSPD, SLP, or ALST) and in the third column put the action (this will be DELETE but
we plan to support other types of actions such as data corrections in a future release). Any future imports
you do will be affected by the DIGATMOS.RUL file settings.

Solving 404 errors
First you must try out different sites in the list, and try them at different times during the day, and see what happens.

ABSOLUTELY NO DATA CAN BE DOWNLOADED: Are you running Norton Internet Security (NIS), Zone Alarm, or other firewall programs? Firewalls are a big cause of cutting off Digital Atmosphere from the outside world. You will need to add Digital Atmosphere to the firewall's list of programs that get Internet privileges.
Your system clock or time zone may be erroneous. Go to Internet > Retrieval and look at the suggested time AND date tokens. Do they match the current Universal Time shown at the US Naval Observatory's site? If not, go into your Control Panel and check your date/time and time zone settings. Be sure that the daylight saving time settings are correct. If you make a change, close and reopen the Internet Retrieval panel to accept the new settings.
Check your Internet connection. Your ISP may be having a problem of some sort.
Does your ISP use a proxy server? If so, you will need to enter the settings for the proxy server in File > Preferences > Misc > Proxy Server Settings. We cannot provide any kind of support for configuring this. You'll need to contact your ISP or network administrator for the settings. Note there is no ability to handle proxy server ID/passwords.

SOME DATA CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM CERTAIN SITES SOMETIMES: Your system clock or time zone may be erroneous. Go to Internet > Retrieval and look at the suggested time AND date tokens. Do they match the current Universal Time shown at the US Naval Observatory's site? If not, go into your Control Panel and check your date/time and time zone settings. Be sure that the daylight saving time settings are correct. If you make a change, close and reopen the Internet Retrieval panel to accept the new settings.
Are you accessing data too early in the hour? Sometimes products are not available for 10 or 20 minutes after the cardinal hour as the data servers are going through a bulletin collection cycle.
The data server may be offline. This can be "tested" by checking out the URL, and trimming off the filename in a browser to try to list out the directory. You may discover that the server is broken, offline, or the contents have been rearranged. We are not responsible for making short-notice corrections or notifications, as this kind of thing happens occasionally. Simply use a different data source and we will fix it within a few months.
You have too many data items selected. You only need one METAR resource, one upper air source, and so forth. Do NOT select more than what you need. If one of these sources is offline, it will interrupt the entire data retrieval operation. If you want, you can find the problematic data source by using a process of elimination to check one resource at a time and retrieving from that source until you find the one that generates the error.

ONLY FRONTAL BULLETINS CAUSE PROBLEMS: Does this occur only with frontal bulletins? It is very difficult for Digital Atmosphere to estimate when this product will be available. In many cases you can subtract 1 or 2 hours from the @H time token to get the latest product.

Why am I receiving old weather data? Your system clock or time zone may be erroneous. Go to Internet > Retrieval and look at the suggested time AND date tokens. Do they match the current Universal Time shown at the US Naval Observatory's site? If not, go into your Control Panel and check your date/time and time zone settings. Be sure that the daylight saving time settings are correct. If you make a change, close and reopen the Internet Retrieval panel to accept the new settings.
Does this occur with Synoptic and Upper Air data?. This data is NOT generated hourly. It is only available every 6 to 12 hours. Digital Atmosphere is not designed to retrieve intermediate synoptic observations, but this can be overridden by changing the URL construct for the synoptic observation sites in Internet > Retrieve.
Try clearing out your data directory using the File > Clear Data Directory command to make
sure that old scraps are weeded out.

Storing data as a file, then importing
If you choose to save data manually, you must save the incoming weather data into a disk file. Under Netscape or
Explorer, you can do this by having the raw data on your screen, then choosing "File, Save As...".
Remember the directory and filename you are saving the data to. Then when it is finished downloading, go into
Digital Atmosphere, choose "File, Import a file..." and choose that file. After it imports, you can then plot and
analyze it. Note that if you're on the Internet, you can skip this whole process by choosing Internet > Retrieve Data
and let Digital Atmosphere do all the work.

Range check errors
These are caused by a corrupt data element in your file that is causing Digital Atmosphere to abort one of the import
modules. It will continue importing data, but one of the data types (such as synoptic, SD, or rawinsonde) will be unavailable.
Range check errors are for the most part harmless though annoying. If this happens, please send a sample of the
file to our E-mail address and we will try to fix
it in the next version of the program. Be sure to clearly indicate the problem with the sample or we will not
be able to do anything with it.

Using international data
In the Digital Atmosphere Internet > Retrieve panel, a large number of the download options are valid for
Europe and most other parts of the world. For first-timers we recommend any one of the entries listed as
"Synoptic (world)". That will allow surface data for most places in the world to be plotted.
(And yes, International data does include the U.S.!)

Plotting

Suddenly stations are plotting with permanent wrong UTC time. Using quality check the stations only shows 18:00 even though
the actual observation time is 19:00 UTC.
First of all check the data source you are using. If you are using Internet > Retrieve Data be aware that some of the
template URLs for SYNOP and UPPER data are constructed to use the 6-hourly files (12-hourly for UPPER) as many countries
don't report these data types at more frequent intervals. Should you wish to use more frequent observation times, select
a data source labeled with a higher frequency. You can also choose Edit to inspect the time tokens for the URL to see if
they use @H (1-hourly), @I (3-hourly), @S (6-hourly), or @X (12-hourly). See the user manual under "Data Menu" for more
information. Also you may want to constrain or expand the plotted time with Time Selection in the left side control panel,
or examine the raw data with Data > View Raw Data to see what data is in the file. (3/22/2019)

I cleared the map and asked DA to display current data, and it is displaying other (older?) data for KMFE (& I assume for other stations?) This is not behavior I have seen... the only thing I can think of that would cause this is: The data directory is loaded with old data somehow (this is solved by using File > Clear Data Directory and reimporting data).
You have SYNOP and METAR data mixed together in the file; Digital Atmosphere will often try to display the SYNOP data since there's more of it, and will not display the METAR data if it's valid for another time [this was the cause of this particular complaint]. You can display each dataset by manually setting the surface time, but of course this means you have to know which time frames are available. The best way to avoid this is to NOT download METAR and SYNOP data together.
Too much METAR data was downloaded from multiple sources; only one METAR resource should be used at a time before Internet > Retrieve is done again. Alternatively you can "lasso" the MFE plot and QC the station to see how many instances of observations exist for this station. This would be the thing to do after following the above.

I want to research out new weather stations or correct a station in the Digital Atmosphere listing. What resources can I use to do my research? DIGATMOS.STN file. You can add and delete stations from Digital Atmosphere by editing DIGATMOS.STN with a text editor, saving, then using Digital Atmosphere's File > Recompile Tables to enable the changes (it takes about 5 minutes).
Station page. For plenty of links, resources, and databases relating to weather stations, head to our Station Identifier Page. You can even download a program called METAR Audit that compares real-time data to the Digital Atmosphere station listing and finds new stations that aren't in your listing.

Cloud heights cannot be plotted by layers. It plots only the ceiling.
There is no capability to plot heights layer by layer. This is a capability that will have to go into our suggestion box for inclusion at some point in the future.

We are having a problem with some station plots we added. They are not plotted in the correct coordinates which we included in station file. I've checked if the coordinates were right and it seems so.
The fraction portion of each station's latitude and longitude must be entered in minutes, not decimal fractions. In other words, a station halfway between 6 deg S and 7 deg S would be entered as 0630S, not 0650S. Other problems could arise from station identifiers that are longer than the space allocated to them (4 letters for ICAO and 5 letters for WMO number).. this could cause duplicates to occur.

Where can I get a list of the used weather symbols and their meanings?
See our plot reference sheet at wxcode1.gif (weather) and wxcode2.gif (clouds). These images are extracted from our Weathergraph reference sheet.

In Digital Atmosphere 2000, when I display a station plot, I only get the oktas, wind barb, pressure and ceiling height. No temperature, no dewpoint, no visibility. I checked the preferences immediately, and all of the fields are there.
Go to File > Preferences > Station Plots and re-select the items in the dropdown menu where you see the temperature,
dewpoint, and visibility. This will enable a new set of elements that are now in use (i.e. TEMP(F) changes to
TEMP, DWPT(F) changes to DWPT, etc). We have patched the downloadable version on our web site for this, but there's
no reason to re-download, since the above corrections accomplish the exact same thing and fix the error permanently.

What are the alphanumeric codes used for the ceiling height on station plots?
Measurement method: M=Measured E=Estimated C=Unknown

How can I customize the Television Plot cities?
All you need to do is look in your Digital Atmosphere program directory (using any ASCII editor such as
Windows Notepad) and edit the file named DIGATMOS.PLL . Columns 1-4 should contain the ICAO (for METAR
observations) and columns 6-10 should contain the synoptic station number (for synoptic observations).
Either the ICAO or synoptic identifier, or both, can be used. Columns 12-50 should contain the text
for the station that you want plotted on the map (leave it blank if you want nothing). We hope to
do away with this crude interface in an upcoming version of Digital Atmosphere and add a city list interface.

Is there a way to force the use of a particular weather station in the plot data command?
Yes. Add the desired station to your DIGATMOS.PRI file using a text editor. Stations in this list are always plotted first.

A station plot I want to look at isn't on the map.
Digital Atmosphere operates with a default selection of using a clutter suppression algorithm, which
avoids plotting a station if there is a chance it will overwrite an neighboring one that's already plotted.
You can turn this off by going to File > Preferences > Station Plots and checking "Plot All Stations".
This may make your map VERY cluttered. To force a station to always plot, edit the station plotting rules under
Data > Edit Station Rules.
In older versions (before 2019 V3.20), add the station to the DIGATMOS.PRI prioritization file so it gets plotted first.

Why are some station plots red or blue?
A red station plot indicates instrument flight rules (IFR), which means the ceilings are
below 1000 feet and/or the visibility is below 3 miles. A blue station plot indicates marginal
visual flight rules (MVFR), meaning the ceiling is below 3000 feet and/or the visibility is below 5 miles.
These colors are good for helping you visualize areas of low ceilings and visibility at a glance.

What do the square station plots represent?
The square symbol is reserved for automated stations. An automated report is signalled by either "AUTO", "ASOS",
or other similar abbreviations in the report, or by the indicator for automated observations in a SYNOP report.

Why am I not seeing pressure tendency, cloud symbols, or precipitation symbols in station plots?
This bug is usually reported when the WeatherSymbols font doesn't install properly during the installation process.
This can be solved by downloading the Meteorological Truetype Font file at
http://www.weathergraphics.com/dl/,
opening the file, right-clicking the .ttf file, and selecting Install. A couple of users have reported that only
the meteo-old.zip file works for them. We have not been able to reproduce the issue but are continuing to
collect reports. (3/20/2019)

I'm seeing numbers and letters where there should be station cloud cover and weather type.We can't get fonts for cloud type to display.
There are two possibilities:

1. The WeatherSymbols Truetype font did not get installed, or is not being used because Digital Atmosphere is being used without
having gone through an install process (which places the font on the computer). You can check for the font by going to
Control Panel > Fonts and seeing if WeatherSymbols is in the list. If not, you can obtain it from our downloads page at
http://www.weathergraphics.com/dl and install it manually.

2. This is also a very real possibility: The original data may not actually be reporting any cloud type data. Many SYNOP stations
have ceased to report cloud type because of the proliferation of automated observing stations, which do not report cloud type
unless supplemented by human observation. You may want to select a major reporting hour (00Z and 12Z) and look at reports all
over the world and see if any instances of weather and cloud type appear in the plots.
A good place to look (as of 2011) for cloud type is SYNOP data in Russia, which does report the information.
Also check File > Preferences > Station Plots and make sure you see CLD/H, CLD/M, and CLD/L somewhere in the Surface Plot Model slots.

Contouring

The analysis isopleths don't seem to match well with the data.
All objective analysis routines are smoothed so that the isopleths don't look extremely coarse. You can reduce
the smoothing operators in the File > Preferences > Analysis menus. Also, take into account that if a station
sends out a bad meteorological value, the analysis may yield a more representative value than the station plot
itself. You can clean up bad data using the Quality Control command as discussed in previous chapters. If you need
extremely accurate isoplething, hand analysis (on top of a printed map) is always the best solution.

How can I change isopleth colors, linestyles, and intervals?
Edit the scripts stored in the DIGATMOS.MNU file. See the help manual on how to change the scripts.

Mapping

When I tried to use generate map function and cancelled out of it, Digital Atmosphere locked up and gave the following errors: Error allocation memory for DIB / Writing bmp file failed. After that the map is "stuck", data won't plot, and Generate Map fails to let me generate a new map.
Here is what you should do to "untangle" the map attributes. Here's how to do it.
1. On the toolbar (NOT in the menus), pick Alabama in the Generate Map dropdown list. It will regenerate a map, which may be slightly off.
2. Go to Map > Generate Map > Enter Lat/Long. It should let you in now.
3. Press the United States in the location quick-pick.
4. Press the Reset button in "Advanced"... this will set image offsets back to 0 and aspect to 1.
5. Press OK. A new map will be generated, which may be slightly off.
6. Repeat Step #1 for any location.
7. Repeat Step #2-5 for any location.
8. The problem should be fixed now.

Where can I get high-resolution topographic maps?
You may download them from the following website:
http://www.wistorms.net/planetaryZips/
Note that the files are very large and will take time to download.

Why doesn't Digital Atmosphere plot cities?
This is an optional feature that you will need to configure for your own purposes. Simply edit the DIGATMOS.CIT file and add the cities you want plotted (you'll need the latitude and longitude). The format is self-explanatory.

I just generated a map and noticed a certain inlet or water body did not fill with an ocean color. (Digital Atmosphere 2000 and earlier only)
If you modify the [digitalatmosphere]\GEO\FILL.GEO file, you can add in a new "point" where an ocean color fill can be forced. Simply right-click on the unfilled area and choose "Get lat/long". Using this lat/long, enter it in the FILL.GEO file. Future map generating operations will fill this area starting at this point.

Every now and then when generating a map, I see an area that's been flooded by an ocean fill. (Digital Atmosphere 2000 and earlier only)
There is probably a defect in the geography file that allows a gap in the coastline to be plotted. One method to avoid this is to regenerate at a different zoom level or use File > Maps > Double Wide Coastlines. This geography file problem can't be permanently fixed until the next upgrade, however in the next upgrade we will be adding an editable fill boundary file that will allow users to "close off" any problematic boundaries.

Is it possible to correct political boundaries in Digital Atmosphere? Is there not a file (geo) similar to the *.plr file which I can edit to fix a border?
You can add borders, of course, using custom geography (see the manual), or erase the basemap and use your own shapefile. We will NOT make changes for border dispute reasons (e.g. India/Pakistan, Argentina, etc).

What is the map projection used for all Digital Atmosphere imagery?
Digital Atmosphere uses the orthographic projection.

Can I remap satellite imagery into the same projection used by Digital Atmosphere and use it as a background BMP?
Only if you can remap the satellite imagery to the orthographic projection and manually scale it and set the aspect ratio as necessary. This can't be done automatically by Digital Atmosphere because it's impossible for the software to guess at the position of the satellite photos and how to fit the image.

Printing

When I attempt to print a chart I get a totally black page. But I was able to export to a file then print the file.
The problem is with the Windows layers handling printing, however this is rarely reported. Digital Atmosphere basically just sends it the image and it's the driver's job to process it. If this happens, there are only a few things you can do:
(1) Find an option in the print setup to change to "send as raster", or deselect.
(2) Make absolutely sure your workchart background is pure white (go into Preferences > Styles, set the background to white, then regenerate the map).
(3) Copy the map to the clipboard (File > Copy to Clipboard) and then paste into your favorite graphics program (like PaintShop Pro), then print; these graphics programs usually have custom-built code that does a better job than the Windows image handlers.
We will try to add in an option in an upcoming version to send the printer an alternative image format to see if this helps. (9/6/05)

I'm having problems printing to my printer (typically an HP but may include other models).
A few users in the past have reported problems printing, in particular with HP LaserJet printers (such as getting blank pages).
This was mostly a problem in Windows 95, 98, and ME due to substandard drivers, and it seems that it has gone away in 2000 and XP.
By 2002 we were getting very few complaints.

Is there anything I can do to get a good printout?
There are a few things you can try. Go to print setup (below), and either change the resolution from
600 to 300 dpi or change "vector" to "raster". If your printer is equipped with a PostScript option, use
the PostScript mode for 600-dpi printing. This 600-dpi PCL5 printing problem is not specific to Digital
Atmosphere. Documents with various graphic images may not print correctly to the LaserJet 4 in PCL mode
at 600 dpi unless the Graphics option in the Windows printer driver setup is set to Raster mode.

If I can't make printouts, is there anything I can do?
Use the clipboard. Simply go to Map > Copy to Clipboard, then switch to another graphics program that is
known to work well with your printer, and paste it there. Then you can print the image. And if
you're having printer problems, by the way, let us know. We're interested in the details.

The printer responds with "overflow error" or erratic "out of paper" errors.
The maps that Digital Atmosphere sends to your printer are huge and for best results will require
4MB or more of RAM on your printer. This usually isn't a problem with inkjet printers (where the
printfile is spooled off the hard drive), but laser jet printers require a complete image in their memory before they
print to the drum. If this is the case, go to File > Printer Setup and change the resolution settings
so the map is printed at a lower resolution. Another remedy is to avoid solid color fills, such as topography,
blue oceans, etc, since they take up considerable printer memory.
On the other hand, RAM is extremely cheap these days; upgrade your printer's memory.

Miscellaneous

Can you list all the "secret" files in Digital Atmosphere that I can modify?
Sure. Here they are:

I am seeing a numerical error code.
These are system runtime errors and may be encountered from time to time in Digital Atmosphere and other software programs. Although these errors are very rare, here are some of the ones we've seen over the years.

Error 1: Invalid function number.;Has never been seen before. Contact us.
Error 2: File not found. A file has been erased or corrupted. Reinstall Digital Atmosphere.
Error 3: Path not found. An invalid directory name has been specified somewhere. Contact us.
Error 4: Too many open files. Close some other programs.
Error 5: File acces denied. Digital Atmosphere cannot access a file that it needs. Contact us.
Error 30: Read fault. Disk is corrupt or a hardware problem exists. Run Scandisk, check hardware, or get the help of a technician.
Error 32: File sharing error. Another program or process did not allow Dig Atm to access a file it needs. Close all other programs.
Error 53: Network path not found. Occurs in old Dig Atm versions. Update to the newest version of Digital Atmosphere. Error 53 is a "Network path not found" error that is triggered in pre-1998 versions of Dig Atm when the Internet (winsock) services on your computer are not compatible.
Error 100: Disk read error. Hard drive problem exists. Go to Windows Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and run Scandisk with a thorough check of the hard drive.
Error 101: Disk write error. Hard drive problem exists. Go to Windows Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and run Scandisk with a thorough check of the hard drive.
Error 102: File not assigned. Possible programming error. Contact us.
Error 103: File not open. Possible programming error. Contact us.
Error 104: File not open for input. Possible programming error. Contact us.
Error 105: File not open for output. Possible programming error. Contact us.
Error 106: Invalid numerical format. Possible programming error. Contact us.
Error 200: Division by zero error. Mathematical problem. Send exact details about what you were doing and the exact source of data (including filename if possible) to our tech support address. A sample of the data is often helpful.
Error 201: Range check error. Mathematical problem. Send exact details about what you were doing and the exact source of data (including filename if possible) to our tech support address. A sample of the data is often helpful.
Error 202: Stack overflow. Digital Atmosphere ran out of memory. Close other programs and/or use smaller maps in Digital Atmosphere.
Error 203: Heap overflow. Digital Atmosphere ran out of memory. Close other programs and/or use smaller maps in Digital Atmosphere.
Error 204: Invalid pointer operation. Error in source code. Send as many details as possible to our tech support address.
Error 205: Floating point overflow. Digital Atmosphere ran out of memory. Close other programs and/or use smaller maps in Digital Atmosphere.
Error 216: General protection fault (GPF) error. Memory configuration is corrupt. Close Windows and reboot computer.

Nothing on this page helps. I'm still having problems.
Send us a message using our contact page. Thanks!